Of Fists and Feathers
by Sierra of the Stars
Summary: "There was no moment of suspended silence. The world did not grind to a halt and take a deep, liberating breath before the plunge into war. We simply left." For the people of Esgaroth, the battle for Erebor was only a small chapter in a centuries-long saga of bloodshed, betrayal, and unquenchable hope. Full summary inside. Pre-Hobbit thru Smaug's siege of Esgaroth, T for violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Word Count: **3,361

**Disclaimer: **I don't own nuttin' 'cept me own OCs.

**Full Summary: **_"There was no moment of suspended silence. The world did not grind to a halt and take a deep, liberating breath before the plunge into war. We simply left."_ For the people of Esgaroth, the battle for Erebor was only a small chapter in a centuries-long saga of bloodshed, betrayal, and unquenchable hope. In this most tempestuous of times, one girl must identify her enemies, her allies, and her own values before her city drowns in the tides of war. Pre-Hobbit thru Smaug's siege of Esgaroth. There will be blood.

* * *

**Chapter One**

**-Finne-**

"You're a brave fool, Finne Sveinnasdóttir." He reclined lazily against the splintered east-facing wall of the armory, arms crossed over his chest, face smooth and haughty. He looked infuriatingly pleased with himself.

"You smell like the stables, Erlendr Jørnnsson," I said. I ran my hand down the gritty shaft of the _atgeirr_ hanging before me, imagining the cold, metallic song of sword against sword, the chorus of legions rallying for battle. I had never heard such sounds, but I couldn't conceive of music more beautiful.

"At least I know how to ride a horse."

"I could learn if I wanted to." I closed my eyes and fought to keep my breath even. _Don't let him provoke you, _I warned myself. _A _warrior_ is not easily perturbed._

"Oh, like the way you learned to wield a sword? I think your definition of skill mastery is slightly skewed," he scoffed. Erlendr paused in mock consideration. "Ragnfastr's toe still hasn't grown back, you know, whatever incantations the medics chant over it."

"Can you teach me?" I demanded, tugging the thrusting-spear down from its peg with a muffled grunt of exertion.

"Swordplay?" His bushy white-blonde eyebrows crawled upward, almost vanishing under his equally pale mop of hair. "All the gods in Uphiminn could not hope to accomplish such a feat."

"No," I said crossly. "The _atgeirr." _I brandished it at his nose, which was slightly crooked from countless breakings. All of which he deserved, of course, and one or two that I myself had dealt. He batted the javelin away, pine-green eyes disdainful, and I huffed in exasperation. "I want to be able to defend Esgaroth if the dragon returns, or the Wainriders, or the elf-witches. When the war reaches us, and it will, I want to be useful. I want to fight."

_"A brave fool," _muttered Erlendr. "No one comes back from the battles with Rhûn. Not full-grown men, not legendary warriors. An ignorant goat girl wouldn't last ten heartbeats."

"Mayhap I would, if I knew how to handle a weapon. If you refuse to show me, I'll go anyway, and serve only as arrow-fodder, if that's what you want." I drew myself up to my full height and tried to imitate Erlendr's imperious voice. I still only reached his forearms.

"You will still be arrow-fodder," he said condescendingly, wresting a second spear from the wall and bouncing it in his hands a few times to check its weight and balance. "The shields are in that barrel."

I followed the jerk of his head to a stout ale cask in the corner, streaked with age and gathering faintly glimmering cobwebs like a burial shroud. Within, a few dozen round wooden shields were stacked haphazardly, one on top of the other. Their weathered surfaces were adorned with peeling scarlet and viridian pigment, battered insignias of the old Houses, and rusting metal studs. I selected a small, dark amber one from the center of the teetering pile. If it were not for the walls of the barrel, the others would have toppled onto the beaten dirt floor.

Under closer examination, my shield was marred by countless small gashes, and a brown stag was carefully painted on its center, dulled by an unknown measure of time. Its former owner had etched small runes around the rim, though I could not read them.

"What do these say?" I hefted the shield into my arms with no small amount of effort and displayed the writing to Erlendr. He squinted, tongue protruding from between his teeth in contemplation.

_"Sjá vera Röng, skjoldr frá Hægwyn áf Hallfrøthrholl, valr í Malmhríth, 2873 Thríthi Ardartal. _Looks like this shield's last master was arrow-fodder as well."

"Röng… Do all great warriors name their shields and weaponry?" I asked, choosing not to grace his jibe with a direct response.

"If they're conceited enough."

"I'd better start brainstorming, then, seeing as I'm bound to be the most infamous shield maiden in the history of Esgaroth within the hour." I did not glance at Erlendr, certain that I would be rewarded only with contempt, but he didn't laugh.

* * *

Parry right, left, left, right. The _atgeirrs _clacked against one another like long wooden wind chimes. Erlendr's light eyes did not change as we sparred again and again and again, he to block or evade a few clumsy blows and then proceed to knock me on my rump every time. Half the time I fell of my own accord, stumbling on my stained skirts as they swirled around my feet like a woolen green Maelstrom. The spear felt flimsy and awkward in my untrained grasp.

"Initiate the motion from your hips to get more force," Erlendr coached. "Shield up!"

Sweat cascaded down my face, scalding my eyes as I inhaled the fetid stench of dust, rusting metal, and blood from the shallow gash on my thigh. The shield, small though it was, was so cumbersome I could scarcely lift it from the floor. I crouched instinctively, struggling to raise it to guard my face as Erlendr bombarded me with a rain of particularly vicious blows. The thrusting-spear's shaft struck me on the left cheek, where I had not heard it whistle through the air. Trust Erlendr to take advantage of my bad ear. I ducked my head and sank my teeth into my lip to keep from crying out at the stinging pain. _I will not be arrow-fodder, _I chanted to myself in a dizzying mantra. _I will show you who will survive, Erlendr Jørnnsson._

"On your feet, Finne. On your feet!" He rapped his _atgeirr _against my knee and I rose unsteadily to a fighting stance, just managing to hold Röng as I flicked my wrist to adjust my grip on my own weapon. He slammed the head of his spear into my shield rim, and Röng spun automatically with the momentum, leaving my upper body exposed. _I will not be arrow-fodder. _Erlendr lunged, poised to ram my in the stomach with his shield. I swept the spear across my abdomen, and its shaft shattered into a thousand tiny splinters at his strike.

"My-"

"Keep fighting!" said Erlendr. "If this were a true battle your opponent wouldn't cease his attack to let you go searching for a new weapon. Use your shield."

Choking on the blind fury that rose in my throat like vomit, I pivoted, bracing Röng against my chest and nearly staggering under its weight. _I will not be arrow-fodder. _Erlendr thrust once more, and on an inexplicable impulse I shoved my shield out from my body. The _atgeirr _glanced off it with a metallic thud. As he regained his balance, I jerked my arm and sent the spear spinning across the room. My cousin raised his eyebrows, but spared me no compliments. Agony rippled through my body as his shield walloped me in the gut, and I crumpled, eyes watering.

"Closer," he said coldly.

_I will not be arrow-fodder. _Swallowing down a groan of pain, I levered myself upright, snatched a new javelin from the wall, and jabbed it at Erlendr's foot. He hopped backward, avoiding the feeble assault, and retrieved a broad iron sword from a barrel behind him. The blade flickered with silver fire as he struck, and its strange light was reflected in his eyes, giving them a manic glow. _I will not be arrow-fodder. _His sword sang as it met my shield and was deflected. I stood up. He clobbered my once more, and once more I, by no small miracle, repelled his advances. Incursion after incursion. Ricochet after ricochet. My arm trembled with fatigue, and I was vaguely aware that the _atgeirr _had slipped from my hands long ago.

Erlendr kicked Röng's lower half. It tipped outward, and once more I was vulnerable. The foible of his broadsword grazed the skin beneath my chin, and he held the sword at my throat for a moment so long it could have been an eternity. I released Röng from stiff, listless fingers. He lowered the weapon. _I will be arrow-fodder._

Without another word, I straightened my blouse, replaced the discarded _atgeirr _onto its perch, and trudged from the armory, leaving the green-painted shield to fester in the dust, surrounded by footprints and scuffmarks. Erlendr didn't make any move to hinder me. Outside, the snow lay in knee-high drifts on the bridgeroads. The spindly columns beneath creaked and bellyached under the weight of the slush as it tugged at my skirts like a petulant child. The bridgeroads were far too narrow for a horse and plow to pass across. It was the best we could do to shovel the snow out with our hands once it rose high enough to block the doorways. We spent many wickedly cold mornings scooping ice and slush from the thresholds of our homes until our fingertips were white and cracking with frost. Mornings we should have spent fending off the Wainriders in the southeast.

Esgaroth had distanced itself from the combat for far too long. The Easterlings' attention may have been on Dorwinion now, but soon it would shift northward, and the city couldn't go on much longer without supplies from the coast. It was high time that we fought back. The goats' familiar bleating roused me from my musings. The herd swarmed to the fence as I approached, grinning with their strange half-jaws and blinking their sideways hazel eyes demurely. For once their eagerness to suck at my clothing seemed sympathetic rather than irksome. Nanny Ølkerlífs, a bedraggled old doe with a wandering eye, nuzzled my throat and promptly began to nibble on my vest. Despite her age, she was still one of our best milkers, and by far the most affectionate. I batted her away, wringing the snowmelt from my apron and wincing as a bead of ice slithered down my ankle. It was unusual for the goats to be out in the chill. Why hadn't Aunt Brijid herded them into their stalls?

_"Hitta, hafr-kvennalith," _I crooned into Nanny Ølkerlífs' ears, patting her rumpled flank. _"Hitta. _Come!" She snorted and shifted my weight. _"Hitta," _I repeated. No response. I looked closer. The doe's mismatched eyes were discolored around the irises, and her nose was dry. My brow creased as I grasped the rope collar around her neck and yanked her towards the barn. Nanny Ølkerlífs made an odd clucking noise in her throat and followed reluctantly, her hooves dragging and her head bowed low. Never in my life had I had to pull Nanny Ølkerlífs anywhere.

I heaved against the heavy wooden doors and led the nanny across the hay-strewn floor to the milking platform. Usually she was pleased as anything to leap up and be relieved of her discomfort, but today she stepped onto the platform slowly and shakily, as if every movement pained her. I brushed her down as usual, sneezing several times as her coarse hair drifted in a furry cloud around her body, then kneeled, wiped off my udders with a worn, yellowed rag, and rested my hands on her teats. As always, I savored the warm, smooth feeling beneath my palms. It reminded me of holding a tankard of hot tea, but softer, gentler. No milk came. I tried again, then jostled the teats. The goat's udders were stretched and bulging. Nothing. Frustrated, I rose and stalked to the barn doors, the empty milking bucket thumping rhythmically against my legs, and threw the doors open once more.

I turned to the goat. _"Hitta."_

_"Ek kvethja, _Miss Finne." I whipped around; or rather I would have whipped around if the snow didn't drag down my every movement. My brother Thorid picked his way through the sea of glaring white, brows furrowed, eyes luminous. He was five years my senior, and towered over me even at a distance, but I knew that we weren't so different in appearance. The same short, twiggy build, lank hair the color of burnished copper, gray-green eyes, long straight nose. And there was something else, something in the curve of his mouth and the length of his fingers and the way he moved, that marked us of the same blood."Brijid said you would come."

"What's wrong with the goats?" I asked bluntly. "Are they sick?"

"So it would seem," said Thorid, "though I recognize none of the symptoms. Strange illnesses often come in the winter, of course, but rarely this early. We lost three does last night. Are you well yourself? You seem… forthright. Even more so than usual."

"I sparred with Erlendr. It was a humiliating defeat."

Thorid chuckled. "You are too proud, sister," he laughed. A searing heat welled up inside me. I bit back a sharp protest, fingernails sinking into my palms. After all, arrogance was a forgivable quality in a legendary hero. Dishonesty was not.

"Is there anything we can do for them?" I asked, voice cracking with barely concealed anger. "The goats, I mean."

"Not without first identifying their ailments. Frankly, I'm more concerned about the Wargs. If our livestock are crippled, they will make easy prey for the beasts, and such swift sickness forebodes of a harsh winter. The Wargs' other quarries will die out soon enough, and the goats' weakness could be alluring enough for them to enter the city. You are a skilled goatherd, Finne, but you are not a warrior. You couldn't protect the nannies should the Wargs attack."

"I_ am_ a warrior," I said. "I can fight off Wargs. I can fight off anything." The lie burned like acid in my throat, corrosive and painfully obvious. I couldn't remember the last time I told a mistruth.

"You could not fight off your own cousin."

"That has nothing to do with it! This is about the goats."

Thorid shook his head remorsefully. "No, little sister. I don't think it's about that at all. I think this is about the war. Everything is, with you. Young Flæd spills her milk, and suddenly it's an insult to the military. The goats are ill, and you plan to battle marauding Wargs. You lose your first spar, and now you think yourself utterly useless in life. Is that it?" I couldn't meet his stern sage-colored gaze. "Your day will come," he continued. "Everyone will have to fight in the seasons to come, though it may not be with a shield and _atgeirr. _Don't hold your breath for battle. It will come to Esgaroth before the end, and perhaps you'll find that it's not all that you dream of."

"It is the only thing I dream of," I said harshly, leading the next doe into the barn.

"Remaining neutral is not the same as being weak," he called after me. "The battalion leaves before dawn tomorrow, and I with them, to escort the ambassador from Dorwinion to the Lake. That's all that we can do for now. It may already be too much." I squeezed my eyes shut against his words and prompted the nanny onto the milking platform.

Three hours futile hours passed before a few tiny, sour smelling drops of milk splattered the bottom of the bucket. The goats had stopped bleating.

* * *

The spine-chilling sound of metal rasping on stone woke me many hours later, and a dull pain in my chest made any return to sleep impossible. My ribcage was already tender to the touch where Erlendr's shield had collided with my body. I'd have an ugly bruise by the time the sun rose, that was certain.

The deathly chill gnawed through my strawpallet, permeating even the thick sheepskin blankets swaddling my limbs. Uphiminn, it was cold. I disentangled myself from the cloth cocoon and staggered drowsily to my feet. The small whittling knife concealed in my boot pressed reassuringly into the sole of my left foot. A hunched figure slumped on the doorstep of the House, a threadbare cloak drawn severely around his shoulders, his fair head bowed against the wind. He was sharpening a sword. I gingerly picked my way through the labyrinth of bedrolls, suppressing a yawn, and propped myself up against the threshold.

"So you will not go, then? To Dorwinion?" I said. I sounded insipid and frail even to my own ears, perhaps from exhaustion, or from the persistent aching of my ribcage, or from the feeling of dissonance that budded and blossomed inside it.

"No." Erlendr blinked up at me, his expression measured, lukewarm. "I have more important duties to attend to here."

"Like scrubbing the livery stalls?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to, Finne," he retorted. "Your cleverness astounds me."

I closed my eyes and felt again the rough shaft of the _atgeirr _against my fingertips, Röng's ballast dragging me slowly but irresistibly downward, let the shouts and rowdy melodies of imaginary soldiers drown out all other thought. And then the anger swept over me. Anger at him, anger at myself. Who was Erlendr to remain in Esgaroth like a groveling coward, when he was old enough and strong enough and skilled enough to fight? When I would have exchanged my_ soul_ for a day on the battlefield? When the fate of our city hung in the balance, and one warrior as talented as he could mean the difference between victory and desolation?

_"Falla," _I snapped, nearly choking on the passion constricting my lungs. _"Thú vera nøkkurr neiss hrafnasueltir."_

"You're right." He released the sword and threw up his empty hands. "I am a coward. I'm a coward for not plodding off to certain death and leaving Esgaroth entirely undefended, and for attempting to protect- to protect the city. I'm a coward."

_Cowards. We are a city of cowards. Cowards and crow-starvers and thieves. _Before I had considered the futility of my actions, my knuckles had crunched once, twice, three times into the doorframe. Blood ran in crimson ribbons down my fist, and I was crying. It should have hurt, yet I couldn't feel anything but the torrid burn of shame. Erlendr caught my wrist in one broad, calloused hand. For a heartbeat he only squeezed it tightly, so tightly that my fingers splotched white and red from the pressure.

_"Feikinstafir, _Finne, why do you have to do this?" His eyes shone with indecipherable emotion, and tears gathered on his thick lashes, glinting in the dim lantern light. Why, I couldn't fathom. Something about the shrouding darkness and the biting snowflakes had changed Erlendr from the gruff, gloating cousin of the daylight, something I didn't understand. And that was the problem, wasn't it? A lack of understanding, or truth?

That awful sucking tide of fury pulled at my throat, frothing and churning and clashing with the shame and confusion like white-crested waves against the piles of the bridgeroads. _Why do you have to do this? _he'd asked.

"Because I hate being useless," I croaked. And the discontent brimmed over, splashed out, but the words that should have fixed everything seemed oddly hollow in the cold, still night. Insufficient. "I hate being ignored. I hate that I'm not strong or smart or pretty, that I can't fight and when I speak everything falls out of my mouth no matter how cruel. I hate that I'm cruel. I hate everything that's wrong with my family and with my city and with me- especially with me. I hate Esgaroth. I hate not being able to_ save_ Esgaroth. I hate the waiting, constantly waiting, waiting for Smaug or the Easterlings or the Shadow in the Wood to come surging out of the Lake and destroy everything. I hate waiting until I've rotted into a little pile of mold on the boardwalks, because I can't leave, I can't move, I can't do _anything._ I'm trapped by my own inutility, and I hate it, I hate it. I hate everything."

"No one can hold that much hate, cousin," said Erlendr quietly. "No one should have to."

"And yet I hold it all the same. Haven't you ever hated, Erlendr?" He released my injured hand and I sank to my knees. Together, for a long time, we stared at the whorls of snow blanketing the Brúhardsnúinn in pure, untainted whiteness, until slowly, inevitably, I sagged against him, and everything faded to black.

**Author's Note: **Hello! For those who don't know me, I'm Sierra of the Stars. You can call me Len if you wish, or Sierra, since it's easier to remember. This is my first story posted in a very, very long time, mostly because I have been working on it for about eight months altogether. Not that its quality has been improved by that time. Most of it was spent rewriting, outlining, and giving up. But here it is, the first chapter of Of Fists and Feathers. I really hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear your feedback, be it positive, negative, or constructive. It means a lot to me.


	2. A Note

**Apologia Scriptor:**

Is it possible to be dyslexic with maths? Because I'm becoming increasingly convince that I might be. Algebra is supposed to be simple. In theory, I get it, but when I try to put the numbers together, they tie themselves in swallowtail knots and get all tangled up like abandoned earbuds. It makes my head throb just to think about it.

I guess what I'm getting to here is that eighth year is more intense than I'd bargained for. I haven't written anything but Conceptual Physics theorems and analytical term papers since the semester began, and I don't expect that'll change any time soon.

I have too much invested in this plot to just slop it down and slap it up online as my current schedule would require. I may work on some lower-maintenance stories for the time being. I have some ideas bouncing around in my head.

But I need to take a step back from _Of Fists and Feathers. _I'm sorry if I've let anyone down, and I can't tell you how much your alerts and favorites mean to me.

Thank you for everything. :(

* * *

On a much cheerier note, I'd like to extend a birthday shoutout to the illustrious Cosmo7Tails.

Happy fourteenth, Cosmo!

/*traipses about tossing confetti*/


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